Wednesday, April 25, 2018

Pornosophy: The Joys and Pitfalls of Domesticity

Domesticity can be a source of great solace. You see the
same person all the time, and in the most intimate settings imaginable, and you
don’t think twice about it. Though they’re the center of your life, it’s as if
they don’t exist. Same sex roommates rarely experience the kind of enmeshment
that characterizes couples who have come out of the romantic stages of their
relationships and are in for the long haul. There's even a scene during Performancea l970 film about a
reclusive rock star where the characters played by Mick Jagger and Anita
Pallenberg evince an almost horrifying familiarity with each other as they walk
around in their underwear. It’s possible to reduce even the sexiest of stars to
a humdrum lifestyle which was one of the achievements of the film. But it’s
important not to let this go to far. Familiarity breeds contempt goes the old
saw and no one wants to get to the point where the sight of a once loved object
produces indifference. How to maintain sexual chemistry and the
comfort and trust that derives from routine? The answer is that it requires a
certain amount of work. Never get to the point where the sight of your other
half’s secondary sex characteristics is taken for granted. Like Kegel exercises
which increase bladder control, sexualization of partners requires practice. You
have to constant remind yourself that the person in front of you is not your
beloved so and so, but a naked man or woman. If you look at the one you love as
if they were a stranger, you will love them even more.

About Me

Francis Levy's debut novel, Erotomania: A Romance, was released in August 2008 by Two Dollar Radio.
His short stories, criticism, humor, and poetry have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The New Republic, The Village Voice, The East Hampton Star, The Quarterly, Penthouse, Architectural Digest, TV Guide, The Journal of Irreproducible Results, and other publications. One of his Voice humor pieces was anthologized in The Big Book of New American Humor (HarperCollins). He is presently the Co-Director of The Philoctetes Center for the Multidisciplinary Study of Imagination (philoctetes.org), where he supervises roundtable discussions on topics as varied as “The Psychology of the Modern Nation State” and “Modern Traffic Theory, Behavior, and Imagination”.